Friday, August 19, 2016

The Story Behind Self-Defense in Gamis

Today, we have a special treat for our dear readers. Though everyone is continually dazzled by Agent Kalorned's elite PvP skills, they may not fully appreciate the deep, rich history behind each of his videos. Kalorned has taken time out of his busy elite PvP schedule to do a full write-up about the circumstances surrounding the kills featured in the latest video. Enjoy!

Background:

It was December of 2015 when I wrote about "Agent" Darkspear. (The Darkspear Mystery series.) That story mostly revolved around him, however there was a significant supporting character, Lord Connir, Alliance Director for Primal Ascendency alliance. When all hope of negotiating with Darkspear had faded, Lord Connir demonstrated excellent leadership by stepping in and ensuring a proper resolution to the situation his members had been caught up in. Since the events of that story, Lord Connir folded the Primal Ascendency alliance and created a new one, Allied Industries. Since its birth in February, Allied Industries has set up a Fortizar in Sucha and now resides there. With the successful resolution of the Darkspear issue, life in Derelik returned to normal until this past weekend.

The Story:

Having returned recently from a temporary deployment to Abudban, I had just about finished settling back into Gamis when I noticed a few new faces had shown up in local--all from Allied Industries. Among them was Chuck The Ninja. As always, I am more than happy to welcome newcomers to Gamis, but only if they are compliant. In this case, Chuck was flying a Retriever without any permit. After ending the illegal mining operation and looting the wreck, I returned to station.

Skirmish #1

An ambush was sprung at the station. Four Allied Industries pilots undocked simultaneously in battlecruisers, and all began targeting and engaging me! While caught off guard by the ambush, I was able to regain composure quickly and begin defending myself. I started by playing the fleet, zipping around outside their ranges while allowing them to plink me once in a while to keep a Limited Engagement up. This cat-and-mouse game continued for a good 15 minutes or so. When my suspect timer was ended, only 2 Brutixes and a Hurricane Fleet Issue remained on the grid with me; only one Brutix and the HFI had aggression with me. I proceeded to make short work of the Brutix piloted by Pixel Amongus. Afterwards I decided to pursue the Hurricane Fleet Issue, which also succumbed shortly thereafter.

The Siege Begins

The battle was won. I initially thought that the situation was handled and life could resume as it was, however it soon became apparent this was not to be. Only a short while after the fight, I observed Lord Connir docking a Providence. Then he undocked and another short time later returned with another freighter load, all being dropped off at Gamis. The engagement earlier, the ominous large scale deliveries, and around a dozen Allied Industry pilots being observed docking made it clear to me that Gamis was now under siege.

Sure enough, Friday evening the full assault began in earnest as I undocked to find a large fleet consisting of 2 skiffs mining in an asteroid belt escorted by 10 other ships ranging from destroyer-sized to battleship; Allied Industries had begun the assault on a strong foot and were determined to break the peace and serenity that has long blessed Gamis under New Order control. Undaunted, I began bumping the non-compliant Skiffs, offering permits in local and receiving only radio silence and between 4-6 simultaneous carebear stares. Bumping would persist for the next half-hour with the Skiffs attempting to both slowboat back as well as short-warping out and in to try and get even one cycle before being bumped out of range once again.

Skirmish #2

I scanned some of the various ships on the field, both combat and mining roles, to find they were all fit to the hilt with tank including bulkheads in the lows and rigs accompanied by damage controls. It was clear Allied Industries had done some homework on their opponent before beginning the assault. Ganking was clearly out of the question--or was it? After nearly an hour of subduing the Skiffs, a lone Miasmos warped onto grid. I scanned and found that while it was extremely well-tanked for a Miasmos, sporting 3 bulkheads and damage control, 3 T2 Core Defense Field Extender rigs, and 2 T2 Adaptive Invulns. I determined it would be no match for my gank team and summarily ganked it with the entire Allied Industries fleet serving as an audience to the demonstration of power.

The Miasmos was significant as it was the moment that the battle for Gamis began to decidedly tip in favor of The New Order. Carebears and anti-Code rebels often charge that there is no skill in ganking. Gelvan Cadelanne flying a Megathron was one of these individuals. No sooner was the Miasmos ganked than Gelvan made a gank attempt on my Orthrus which hadn't gone suspect. With the help of CONCORD I quickly defeated the battleship and its arrogant pilot. (Note: This kill was featured in a Kills of the Week post.)

Skirmish #3

After the second victorious skirmish with Allied Industries, I spotted an unrelated Retriever mining without a permit. I warped to gank it, followed by Lord Connir in his Proteus. Connir of course tried to stop the gank, but as expected was completely incapable of doing so. Shortly after the gank, however, Gelvan--who had lost his Megathron about 30 minutes prior--warped back to the belt with a Brutix. Unlike carebears (or 95% of them), I knew when and how to use a kill right, and so I took the opportunity to deal another blow to Allied Industries in the fight for Gamis. The battle began slowly. It would take Gelvan 30 seconds to begin returning fire; perhaps he thought I was trying to gank him and felt he could wait out for CONCORD. Regardless, he eventually realized he needed to retaliate, and so the real fight began. The Brutix, fitted almost entirely with bulkhead tanks mods and rigs, was very slow and struggled to keep up with the Orthrus.

I was doing a well enough job of capping myself out and oddly enough Gelvan never bothered to activate his energy neutralizer until it was far too late and he had less than 50% structure remaining. The battle became more dicey the longer it went on with, my cap teetering on the edge of depletion and Gelvan's structure stubbornly holding on. At one point I accidentally bounced off an asteroid into web range but was able to climb out in time before I was slowed down too much. Finally, with about 5% structure remaining, an Allied Scythe warped into the belt in an attempt to save the Brutix--only it was just barely too late as the Scythe and Lord Connir witnessed their alliance's third combat loss in two nights.

The Battle's Aftermath (Victory in Gamis)

With the Brutix loss, Allied Industries had gone from a 12-man strong fleet to a now nearly completely petered-out and demoralized 2-3 man gang. Allied's shock and awe attempt on Friday night had failed miserably; their Skiffs had been unable to mine, they lost a battleship in a most embarrassing manner, and they capped it off by having one of their more capable members lose in direct 1v1 combat with myself. It was a complete route for them and a tremendous victory for the New Order. The following day, 2-3 Procurers and Skiffs would attempt to mine at various times only to be rebuffed with a bumping campaign that at one point lasted over an hour.

On Sunday, all but completely drained and their will broken, Allied Industries miners began to find alternative mining systems, a significant number moving a few jumps away to Asghatil. The miners had forgotten though that all of highsec requires mining permits, and so they were bumped there as well. By Sunday night, Allied miners were docking the moment I warped on grid and members were beginning to try and evacuateassets out of Gamis.

Monday evening saw an even more aggressive evacuation of assets from Gamis. As I was perched on the station all evening, I watched as the same freighter which had moved assets into the system now took them and shipped them out. Additionally, random Allied pilots were observed docking capsules and undocking with various ships including bombers, exploration cruisers, and other such things and moving them out of Gamis. It was clear now that victory in Gamis had been secured and it would remain firmly under New Order jurisdiction for another day.

As of the end of the weekend, Allied's failed assault had cost them 1.67 billion isk and devastating loss of morale for their line members. Lord Connir was given the opportunity to make things right by obtaining permits for his members, similar to how his last run-in with the New Order was resolved, however he chose instead to retreat from Gamis. While it's preferable that these sorts of situations end in Code-compliance, I am happy to report that Allied's loss in Gamis seems to have been better for them, as they now seem to be active in wormhole space and engaging in good, wholesome content. The kind EVE was made for.

24 comments:

Loyal anon aka allise soprano aka banned loyalanon still ganking AG. What are you going to do about it? Nothing! Since you fail daily and never follow through on any of your set out goals. Obviously too dumb to see he is still dunking freighters on your faces.

Loyalanon is also a giant oaf. Or maybe he’s just a lunk, or a doofus, or a Faulknerian idiot man-child, or the real-world analogue of Moose from Archie. Either way it's only a matter of time before he gets himself re-banned and those who transferred ISK and assets to him knowingly banned along with his brand of "never not shitposting". But then again CCP tends to be just as dumb as loyalanon. So you might have to wait another 2 years.

Agent K: You possess all of the tools and techniques to make a system utterly inhospitable to noncompliant miners, and most impressively you depend on your wits to do it.

I have a theory as to why so many miners try to resist the New Order. Being miners, they are lonely and bored, but by resisting us they get to experience some high-quality player interactions. They do it for the attention.

Through the fenceposts on the hill I could see them hitting, across the pasture towards where the flag was. Me and Cornpoe was looking for to find some balls that had gotten lost so we could get a nickel, but I wasn't looking too hard on account of it felt so nice to see the men there on that bright green field, and Cornpoe was just sniffing in a bush not saying nothing because she ain't but an old hound. I sure did love that old dog, but that was before the truck come down the road and I yelled for Cornpoe to come back, but she didn't hear and the noise from the motor was so loud it filled my head up with the roar and then it was too late, too late. And the crash, and the noise from the horn blowing, like it was saying Yah. Yah. Yaaaaaahhhh.

I done told that old nigger that I weren't allowed to go out in the rain, on account of my needing my medicine-pills and my coat being none too dry, but he just kept on saying Don't you know we got to Go. Go and saddle up old Bess and get on our way Right Now Boy there ain't no time. I said no no no and then he made like he was about to commence to beating on me and I started cryin' and then I looked up and he was cryin' too. His face went all soft and he said goodbye and take care of your sister like a good boy. As I watched him and Bess going on up that road in the rainy night I kept thinkin' how it dint need to be this way, it could've been diffrent. Lord knows it could've been.

Well I never thought anything about it except I was saying Run. Run back down to Mammy Granger and the boys from the bunk-house and tell them I never saw nothing, that I ain't seen nobody there in that ditch, with her drawers up over her knees with that man there, too. Run and tell them that I dint see nobody, and make them believe that they was standing up. Run and tell them it weren't true so's Rosie wouldn't get no whipping. But I knowed that they weren't standing up at all. I may not be no nigger but I'll swap any day, since Uncle Quint said it takes a white man not to have any more sense than not to worry about what a little slut of a girl goes and gets herself messed up in. Even though I knowed it was him who made her, made her do it against her intentions.

I said to the old man that he oughtn't to be drinking no more that night, that he done had hisself enough booze but he dint listen. He just kept on pouring and pouring 'til he was all emptied out and he had to go get the other bottle, the one he hid under the bed in the bungalow. He just sat there drinking all night in the red chair by the typing-machine, talking in that big fancy gentlemanly way he does, with big words too fancy for me to understand. He was talking how he never should have done gone to Hollywood to write for them picture-shows. He was saying how California was like a demon straight from hell, a burning flapping devil beast that ate up everything it saw, and that it even ate his soul. When he stopped talking I tried to shake him to wake him on up, but he weren't moving. He weren't waking on up at all.

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